Michael Lynch

Posts by Michael Lynch

We are now offering a new wireless network in addition to midd_secure, midd_unplugged, and Midd-standard. The new network is called eduroam. If you’ve never heard of it, see https://www.eduroam.org/ for more information.

Eduroam has become very popular at Colleges and Universities in Europe as a way for faculty, staff and students to be able to access the Internet wirelessly while visiting other participating institutions. It is now starting to take hold in the US as well. By becoming a participating member of Eduroam, we can offer wireless Internet access in a secure and reliable manner to Eduroam-participating school members without having to have them register ahead of time. And our faculty, staff and students will have wireless Internet access while visiting at other participating institutions.

You will know you are at a participating institution if you see a network called ‘eduroam’ listed. To use eduroam when traveling, you will need to enter your full “username@middlebury.edu” and password. See https://confluence.terena.org/display/H2eduroam/endusers for documentation on configuring eduroam on your device.

While you are here on campus, there would be no reason for Middlebury folks to use the eduroam network. While it will work for you, it is designed for guests and will not give you the access or speed that you enjoy using midd_secure.

There are just under 600 wireless access points (WAPs) in buildings across the main Middlebury campus, in college-owned buildings in town (e.g. Marble Works and the old Court House), as well as at the Breadloaf campus and the Snow Bowl. The demands for robust, ubiquitous wireless service have increased dramatically in recent years, and the sheer number and variety of devices accessing our wireless infrastructure can present challenges to both our budget and our Help Desk staff.

As LIS plans to improve and expand wireless coverage to meet these demands, we are seeking help from the community. If you are aware of a particular area where the wireless service seems consistently sub-optimal, please use this form (Login required) to report it to us. (Note: if you experience problems with wireless access in multiple buildings, please see the LIS Wireless Troubleshooting page.)

This new form is not a substitute for the Help Desk; you should continue to report specific problems to them. We may not personally respond to every problem reported via this form, but we will definitely use this information, in conjunction with other tools, to identify under-served areas of the campus as we plan improvements in our wireless services.

Meet the First Digital Generation. Now Get Ready to Play by Their Rules. By Jerry Adler, via Wired Magazine. I found this to be a fascinating description of “the roughly 4 million Americans born in 1993.” Adler notes that “Each generation imagines itself as rebellious and iconoclastic. But none before has felt as free to call bullshit on conventional wisdom, backed by a trillion pages of information on the web and with the power of the Internet to broadcast their opinions.” If you do read it, stick it out for the happy ending!

The first is from Wired:Beyond the Buzz, Where Are MOOCs Really Going? by Michael Horn and Clayton Christensen. “We believe they are likely to evolve into a scale business, one that relies on the technology and data backbone of the medium to optimize and individualize learning opportunities for millions of students. This is very different than simply putting a video of a professor lecturing online.”

The second is The Trouble With Online College from the New York Times and takes perhaps a less optimistic view. “Courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant portion of college enrollment and who need close contact with instructors to succeed.”

The first is from Wired:Beyond the Buzz, Where Are MOOCs Really Going? by Michael Horn and Clayton Christensen. “We believe they are likely to evolve into a scale business, one that relies on the technology and data backbone of the medium to optimize and individualize learning opportunities for millions of students. This is very different than simply putting a video of a professor lecturing online.”

The second is The Trouble With Online College from the New York Times and takes perhaps a less optimistic view. “Courses delivered solely online may be fine for highly skilled, highly motivated people, but they are inappropriate for struggling students who make up a significant portion of college enrollment and who need close contact with instructors to succeed.”

As a #PDFtribute to Aaron Swartz, O’Reilly Media is posting their Open Government book files for free for anyone to download, read and share. The book asks the question, in a world where web services can make real-time data accessible to anyone, how can the government leverage this openness to improve its operations and increase citizen participation and awareness? (via Slashdot.)